We are a grass roots organization located in both Israel and the United States. Our intention is to be pro-active on behalf of Israel. This means we will identify the topics that need examination, analysis and promotion. Our intention is to write accurately what is going on here in Israel rather than react to the anti-Israel media pieces that comprise most of today's media outlets.

Saturday, December 08, 2012

The New York Times,
along with most other Western media, has kept up a drumbeat of
criticism of Israel's decision to build 3,000 more housing units in the
West Bank and East Jerusalem, along with planning and zoning work on an
area known as E-1 that links East Jerusalem and the nearby Jewish town
of Maale Adumim, population 40,000.

So it comes as no surprise that the Times
would eagerly await a summit in Berlin between German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Dec. 5-6.
Germany disappointed Israel by abstaining from a U.N. vote to grant
statehood recognition to "Palestine" -- instead of casting an outright
"no" vote. Merkel long has differed with Israel on settlements, and the
summit was widely anticipated as an event dominated by this issue.

Forget sitting in an air-conditioned think tank inside the
Beltway-there's no substitute for getting on the ground to give you an
up-close, intimate look at what's really going on in the West's struggle
against radical Islamists.

I’d like to introduce a new term: rekaB Street. That’s Baker Street
spelled backwards, and it represents the opposite of Sherlock Holmes’
approach: rather than notice the anomalies and detect evidence of
criminal or shameful activity that people have deliberately tried to
conceal, residents of rekaB Street systematically ignore any clues that
violate the expectations/demands of their preconceived narrative,
sweeping aside the anomalies and highlighting precisely what has been
created to mislead. It is, in a sense, a process of stupefaction.
RekaB Street exists in many fields.
In a sense, Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, focuses on the problem, in particular, on the resistance to anomalies that contradict the paradigm. He cites a study by Bruner and Postman
about how the resistance to anomalies that violate expectations can be
so strong that people can literally not see that a deck has some playing
cards with red spades and black hearts. The authors note the psychological discomfort felt by people confronting these anomalies (which their minds literally do not want to see).

Britain's nationalized health
service has been funding a television station whose presenters preach
hatred against Jews, women and the West. There will always be groups out
there trying to destroy us, but does that mean we should be financially
supporting their work?

Ramadan TV, a platform for Islamist hate-preachers, refers to NHS North East London & The City as one of its sponsors[1].
In response to a Freedom of Information request, it has emerged that
the NHS funded the television channel to the tune of £3,200[2].
Contrary to the claims of the station, the NHS is quick to claim that
it does "not sponsor Ramadan TV, but we work with them during this time
to produce programmes with a health promotion message in an effective
way to our target group"[3].

As promised, a different sort of
posting here: legal and historical background that is essential to understanding
Jewish rights in the land.

This review will be succinct, with
links to informational sites for those who wish to know more.

It is important to save
and share this material, as it provides data critical for properly defending
Israel. Emphasis has been added to certain
key phrases.

As always, I welcome serious
questions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With the destruction of the
Second Temple in 70 CE, the Second Jewish Commonwealth came to an end.
From then until modern times, what had been Judah, and was renamed
Palestina by the Romans, was only an appendage to one empire or another, never
an independent country.

Thursday, December 06, 2012

Jihad Watch
One day after the end of
hostilities in Gaza. I arrived in Israel. I made a few notes, which I am
planning to publish on Jihad Watch. But first I think that our readers
need to read my interview with Knesset member Faina Kirschenbaum, which
covers the entire current problems of the Middle East.Joseph Zaalishvili: Thank you, Ms. Kirshenbaum, for
your time. A few days ago, Operation Pillar of Cloud ended. The
terrorist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Iranian
authorities and major figures of the Islamic world claim that the last
military operation proves the collapse of the Israeli Defence Force. In
their view, the State of Israel cannot defend itself, and the ceasefire
is supposedly proof of this.
Many political forces in Israel have criticized the government, saying that it was too early to end the military operation.

Media references to territories administered
by Israel since theJune 1967 war now routinely
describe them as "occupied." Yet, thisdescription
conveniently overlooks the pertinent history of these lands,especially the authentic Israeli claims supported by international
law, theunwitting manner in which West Bank and Gaza
fell into Israel's hands aftersustained Arab
aggression and the overwhelming security considerationsinvolved. Contrary to widely disseminated but wholly
erroneousallegations; a sovereign State of Palestine
did not exist before 1967 or1948; a State of
Palestine was not promised by authoritative UN SecurityCouncil Resolution 242; indeed, a State of Palestine has never
existed.

The tunnels of Gaza are a lifeline of the
underground economy but also a death trap. For many Palestinians,
they have come to symbolize ingenuity and the dream of mobility.

Editor’s note: As this issue went to press, the conflict in
Gaza escalated. Hamas and other groups stepped up rocket fire
on Israel, and the Israel Defense Forces launched an air and
sea assault on Gaza, targeting the Hamas leadership and sites
containing rockets and other weapons, along with civil
government and media offices. Israel also extensively bombed
the smuggling tunnels in Rafah.

For as long as they worked in the smuggling tunnels beneath
the Gaza Strip, Samir and his brother Yussef suspected they
might one day die in them. When Yussef did die, on a cold
night in 2011, his end came much as they’d imagined it might,
under a crushing hail of earth.

When is enough really enough? For the State of Israel, apparently, still not yet.

Israeli
military occupation over the “West Bank” is a 45-year-old mistake and
must now end with Israel’s official annexation of the Jewish heartland.
There should also be a withdrawal, not from any land but from the United
Nations.

For
the sake of Jewish identity, heritage, and history – and of Israeli
security and survivability – Israel should immediately assert
sovereignty over Judea and Samaria (Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and west
Menasheh), granting Palestinian Arabs the dignified options of permanent
residency status or emigration with compensation.

The murder of Shaima Alawadi isn’t a sign of increasing prejudice, but of writers’ credulousness

Less than a month after the controversial
killing of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, Shaima
Alawadi, a 32-year-old immigrant who fled her native Iraq in 1993, was
found in her California home bludgeoned with a tire iron, breathing but
barely alive. Next to her brutalized body was a terrifying letter: “Go
back to your country you terrorist.” According to Alawadi’s 17-year-old
daughter, Fatima, this wasn’t the first racist threat made against the
family. A few weeks before the assault, a note left on the family’s car
was blunt: “This is my country, go back to yours, terrorist.”

Immigrants in America are being
told they must deny their appreciation of the capitalist system that
brought them here in the first place. They are told to hate the white
people; those who do not are shamed as traitors to their race. It is
crushing to see an American leader talk about "redistribution of wealth"
under the guise of "fairness." This kind of political talk is more
suited to Haiti or Egypt, but never America. The U.S. government is on
its way to becoming the nightmare totalitarian system from which we
immigrants tried to escape.

If America opens its borders without restrictions, more than half the
world's population will come here. It is America's capitalist system
that is still a dream come true to many who are happy to leave their
stagnant, dysfunctional economies, burdened with both class envy and the
redistribution by government bureaucrats of hard-earned money. Many
immigrants risked their lives to trade their substandard, government-run
health insurance for life in America, where hard work is rewarded with a
better standard of living for most of its people than anywhere ever
before.

Who says many of the more upwardly mobile and
thoroughly assimilated American Jews are at best dormant Jews? Who says
they are estranged Jews, disdainfully detached from the Jewish
collective? Who says they couldn’t care less about Jewish solidarity, to
say nothing of Jewish national interests?

Did they not rush to pillory Murdoch for asking on
Twitter: “Why is Jewish owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every
crisis?”

But Murdoch, unawares, struck a raw nerve when he
appeared to obliquely suggest the existence of Jewish-controlled media.
Talk of Jewish control, potentially lending credence to canards about
Jewish cabals, impacts directly on the standing of American Jews in
American society. This, in contrast to Israel’s dispensable
self-preservation, is something that can send them howling indignantly
on the warpath.

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

The cards seem to be falling, almost
as planned. Our Arab neighbors asked the international anti-Israel organization,
otherwise known as the United Nations, for recognition in their efforts to
delete Israel from the world map. They approached the number one warrior,
General Assembly, who consulted with his Defense cabinet, the Security council,
which vetoed the idea, realizing the negative consequences. So the General
decided to go it alone. As such, palestine was created by General Assembly and
his friends.

Missed in the West, Qaradawi made this declaration two years ago on his popular Arabic program, Al-Sharia wa Al-Haya (“Sharia and Life”), broadcast by al-Jazeera to an estimated audience of 60 million worldwide.

Towards the end of the show, the host asked Qaradawi what he thought
about the fact that Sheikh Ahmad Hassoun, the grand mufti of Syria, had
earlier said to an American delegation: “If [Muslim prophet] Muhammad
asked me to reject Christianity or Judaism, I would have rejected him.”
Visibly agitated, Qaradawi erupted as follows:

The Egyptian national roller hockey team on Friday
boycotted a world championship game against Israel, reportedly on orders
of Sports Minister Amer Farouq, who said he didn’t recognize Israel as a
state, Israel Sports 5 reported on Sunday.

Two Egyptian players informed the Israeli captain that their team
would not show up and that the squad would forfeit the match. According
to the players, Farouq called after the match was announced and
threatened to pull funding for Egyptian roller hockey should the team
take the rink against Israel. Farouq reportedly added that he did not
recognize Israel as a state and therefore would not allow the
competition to take place.

Beginning in July 2000, Palestinians and Israelis
tried to negotiate a permanent peace settlement with active American help, first at Camp David, and in December of 2000
in Washington. The Israelis and Palestinians continued negotiations in January 2001 at Taba. Because no maps of offers
were published, various claims were made about what was offered. "Palestinian sources" published maps that supposedly
showed that Israelis had offered non-contiguous "Bantustans" with US approval. Israelis claimed that PM Barak had made a
"generous offer." In Dennis Ross in "The Missing Peace, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2004, US negotiator Dennis
Ross published maps that support the Israeli version.

Israel's actions in expanding settlements is a direct result of
being maligned and bullied by the international community, writes
Executive Editor Raheem Kassam

Britain has a major problem and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is clearly tied up in knots about it.

On the one hand, you have a strong and legitimate will to solve the
issue of Palestinian statehood. The problem isn't going away and last
week's UN General Assembly vote cemented the fact that the international
community wants, sooner rather than later, the Palestinian state to
come into its own.

But in doing this in such a manner, decades of negotiations have effectively been defenestrated.

Many have argued that this is a good thing. After all, where have decades of negotiations led? Frankly, nowhere.

Hon.
Fiamma Nirenstein is the Vice-President of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs and Chair of the Committee for the Inquiry into Antisemitism in
the
Italian Chamber of Deputies

Il Giornale,November 27th, 2012, sent to ArutzSheva in translation by the author

A.
B. Yehoshua is a great author and a long standing friend of mine.
Despite an old, very interesting book of his about Zionism, Bouli, as
everyone calls him, is truly a Zionist, who only sees in politics what
his highly talented artistic dreams point out for him; fiction rather
than reality is his specialty.

So when yesterday, he asked Israel to strike a deal with Hamas on La Stampa,
he repeated the same mistakes he’s made a thousand times in the
conviction that in order to make peace with the Arabs just ask them,
say please and give them a good gift - that would suffice.

For
some strange reason the whole ideology factor totally eludes him, which
in the case of Hamas is certainly of paramount importance. It’s not
that Bibi Netanyahu, as Yeoshua likes to say, gave Hamas the title of
“terror organization” rather than “foe”, shunning in this way any
possible agreements: no, Hamas is a terrorist group as per the
International declaration.

"You have proof that you are stronger than the occupation, because
you are Palestinians... stronger than the settlements, because you are
Palestinians...One day, a young Palestinian will raise the Palestinian
flag over Jerusalem,” he vowed, “the eternal capital of the state of
Palestine!”

A host of resolutions passed annually by the General Assembly are not legally binding documents by any measure.
One needs only to read Article 10 of the UN Charter:

“The General Assembly may discuss any
questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or
relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the
present Charter, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations to
the Members of the United Nations or to the Security Council or to both
on any such questions or matters” [italics by author].

Other obligations prevent me
from reviewing background on our historical and legal rights to the land
today. But I do not
want to let the day go by without an update on the "Abbas-UN"
situation:

And as I write, it is, so-far,
so-good, because I'm seeing no backtracking on Israeli government
announcements. The contrary, actually.

In several quarters the Israeli
response to Abbas's move at the UN elicited surprise because just days
ago a decision had been made -- which I wrote about -- to keep a low
profile and wait and see how matters progressed.

It seems clear to me
that what turned the situation about was not the fact that Abbas went
to the General Assembly, but the outrageous way in which he spoke about
Israel from that podium. It likely pushed a lot of buttons. (If you
see Netanyahu's statement to the Cabinet, link below, he alludes to
this.)

Sunday, December 02, 2012

MyRightWord Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Sunday, 2 December 2012), made the
following remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting:

"The
response to the attack on Zionism and the State of Israel must
reinforce and underscore the implementation of the settlement plan in
all areas in which the Government decides regarding settlement.

These
are not my words. These are the words of the government of Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin and this is the language of the Cabinet's 1975
decision in the wake of the UN decision that equated Zionism with
racism. Today we are building and we will continue to build in Jerusalem
and in all areas that are on the map of the strategic interests of the
State of Israel.

Israel should let the Palestinian Authority collapse, particularly
in the wake of its unilateral statehood bid at the United Nations, says
Professor Efraim Inbar.
Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) at Bar-Ilan University, was interviewed by the Besheva Hebrew-language weekly this week. The interview was published several hours before the United Nations voted to upgrade the Palestinian Authority to a non-member observer state.Besheva: Mahmoud Abbas is going to the UN to request the status of a non-member state. How do you view this move?
Inbar: "I'm not too upset by it. The Palestinian Authority is a
fictional entity. It continues to exist only because of the IDF, and if
we are not there, Hamas will take over take the place. I'm not sure it
is right for us to continue to support the Palestinian Authority.
We should let it fall apart. "

Matters are just unfolding with
regard to the UN vote on Palestinian state status, and almost certainly tomorrow
will bring more. Here I
will provide an overview:

On Thursday, Abbas secured from
the General Assembly precisely what I had written about -- the PLO delegation
was voted the status of non-member observer status. There were 138 states that supported the
motion, nine that opposed and 41 that abstained.

The legal consequences of this are
minimal -- including with regard to the International Criminal Court (about
which I'll have more to say soon).

Caroline Glick & Mark Levin: The Israeli Solution -- A One-State Pla

Why Israel Opposes International Forces in the Jordan Valley

U.S. scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel

Yet another indication of the absolute corruption of American academia today. "US scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel," from the Jerusalem Post, December 16: NEW YORK – The 5,000-member American Studies Association (ASA), which describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to...http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/12/us-scholars-group-votes-in-favor-of-academic-boycott-of-israel.html

Israel Living Prophecy

A senior New Israel Fund officer told a U.S. official in 2010 that the disappearance of the Jewish state would not be a tragedy, according to a document that was leaked by Wikileaks...She commented that she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.

Mideast expert Michael Widlanski: Fatah is a joke

US-Israeli talks focus on Ahmadinejad's possible ouster

How to exploit the deep cracks forming in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration for removing the Iranian president was a top item on the agenda of the high-level talks between Barack Obama's advisers and Israeli officials at Mossad headquarters in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, Wednesday, July 29.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that Ahmadinejad's cabinet is falling apart; of his original lineup of 21 ministers, only nine remain at their posts.

The Identity Of The Land

Why the Palestinians need to recognize the Jewish State

We do NOT support a 2-state solution

A January 2009 poll found that Americans oppose creating a Palestinian state by 45-31 percent. A February 2009 Maagar Mohot Survey Institute poll has also shown that Israelis oppose creating a Palestinian state by 51-32 percent.

Many other polls tell a similar story.

These figures suggest that Americans and Israelis have understood that creating a Palestinian state under current conditions will not bring peace but merely another terror state.

Netanya,Israel

Jerusalem At Night

Why reconstruct Gaza without making demands

- that Shalit be release without convicted terrorists being released by Israel in exchange,

- that the US be put in charge of the southern border to ensure that Hamas isn’t rearmed?

- that their three preconditions be accepted by Hamas, i.e. agree to all former agreements,recognize Israel and renounce terror

- that Hamas amend their Charter

- That Hamas disconnect from Iran

The answer is that they don’t want to.

Children of Hamas

Picture of Hamas children the media does not show you

IDF: Civilian Deaths in Gaza Less than 25% of Total

A maximum of 25% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli operation are innocent civilians, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), Col. Moshe Levi, said Wednesday. According to Palestinian medical officials, Israel has killed some 1,000 Palestinians and more than half of them are civilians. Levi said the CLA had compiled a list with the names of 900 Palestinians killed during the fighting. He said that 150 names were of women, children and elderly, and that the maximum number of civilians killed so far was 250. Levi also dismissed claims that 43 Palestinians were killed in an IDF attack on a Hamas terror cell that was firing mortars at Israeli forces from within an UNRWA school in Jabalya. Levi said 21 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including a number of Hamas operatives. (Jerusalem Post)

Hamas teaching the children of Gaza

An Iranian reformist daily newspaper has criticized Hamas "for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals." This is reported in today's Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam. The Palestinian daily adds that in response the Iranian government has closed the newspaper.

"The Iranian news agency "Irna" reported yesterday, that the Iranian Culture Ministry has closed the reformist daily newspaper "Karjo Zaran", because it published a report that included criticism of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). On December 30 the paper published a statement of a reformist student organization, that has criticized Hamas for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals. The statement was published whilst the Iranian government expresses a unified stands against Israel, and Tehran is overwhelmed by demonstrations against Israel."

[Al-Ayyam, Jan. 1, 2009] Thanks PMW

Iran-backed Hamas Rocket, Mortar Attacks and Nuclear Developments

9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire ended, Iran-backed Palestinian groups in Gaza fired rockets and mortars that killed an Israeli-Arab construction worker and a mother of four who was seeking shelter in a bus station as a rocket warning siren sounded. [5]1,000+ people in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001, including Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire, 44 Israelis have been injured and 200 have been treated for shock. [6]Thanks Israel Project

It began with this...

The British Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917Dear Lord Rothschild,I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate theachievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities inPalestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.2

Signed,Arthur James Balfour[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]

Favorite Books

While Europe Slept

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member

Syria is an Occupier-Are You Listening World?

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. In meticulous detail - supplemented by photographs and satellite images - the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated.

Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil - in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms which amount to an area of about 12 square miles.

It would be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject.

Information worth Possessing

"Israel gave the Palestinians an autonomy in 42% of the West Bank and Gaza after the Oslo accords in the early 90's. Over 92% of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza were then under the administration of the Palestinian Authority and its Chairman Yasser Arafat.

"Israel is surrounded by 10 hostile Arab countries who do not even recognize its right to exist ( Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Lybia, Morocco, Tunisia, Aden) and Iran"